I almost always gear my birthday photoshoot to the theme of my parties, so in this case, of course, a woodland fairy she was! Isn’t she just perfectly whimsical? More on our Woodland Fairy Photoshoot to come in a separate post…

And back to the party…

VENUE

We are fortunate enough to have an amazing nature center in our neighborhood and what better place to have our Woodland Fairy Birthday Party than the very nature center where all the woodland animals live. They offered a meet and greet with a few animals and a nature hike which was a HUGE hit with the little ones at the party.

CUPCAKES

Courtesy of my mother-in-law, toadstool look-a-likes placed on a wooden cake stand. Normally I would have built this cake stand but since I am running short on storage space, I opted to rent it from a local party planner. Easy enough to build (and to be honest I might still make one someday but for now, I will be good and NOT add to my party storage).

BIRTHDAY GIRL’S PHOTOS

I always display a few of the best shots from our birthday photoshoots at my parties, in this case, I really wanted a super rustic display. I literally grabbed sticks from the park where we were shooting photos, some twine, dollar store flowers and my glue gun and went to town. The wreath I had purchased for another project that didn’t make the cut in the end so I used it to stand up my twig-frames. Now that the party is over I might go ahead and re-attach the photo frames to the wreath in a way where I can hang the wreath on the wall but I will keep you posted as to whether or not that works. I used a whole lot of glue so it’s a toss up.

FAVORS 

Goodie bags are a no-go in my book… Who needs more junk? I would rather give the kids something that they can play with in the future so, for this party and especially since we have mostly boys in attendance, we made Woodland Animal masks. I was going to attempt to cut the felt with my Cricut but in the end we went old school and printed a template from a stock image and cut out the felt by hand. In the end it was faster than trying to figure out how to cut felt on my Cricut. I have read it can be done but I didn’t attempt it this time. And for the girls (we only had a few) we had flower headbands and fairy wings which we also displayed as decoration.

And, because one favor is never enough, when I came across these adorable stuffed woodland animals from Oriental Trading, I had to make a cute sign and get this stacked basket from Hobby Lobby. Isn’t this adorable? The kids LOVED picking out a friend to take home.

CENTERPIECES

I know, I know, I hear that not all parties require centerpieces…. I disagree, I MUST have a centerpiece for every occasion. In an attempt to keep it simple, I created these with mason jars I already had in my mess of a craft room. I put some rocks on the bottom (since the event was outdoors and it might be windy) then put in a handful of moss, added some butterflies, dragonflies, ladybugs, flowers and small wreaths from Hobby Lobby and Dollar Tree. And it goes without saying that every table was adorned with a burlap table runner as well.

FAIRY IN A JAR 

Compliments of Pinterest, I stumbled across this Fairy Lantern Tutorial and adapted the concept to something I could pull together quickly. Using my Cricut and some dark cardstock, I cut out the cute fairy. Frosted an oversized mason jar I already had from a baby shower I threw last year, added the fairy inside and added some glitter, flowers and an LED light inside. You should have seen the little ones looks of amazement that we had captured a fairy inside!

And in a nutshell, that was the party… Not quite as complicated as others I have thrown in the past but with my nephew/godson due right around the birthday party date, I had to be flexible as to what I could actually accomplish in the time frame I had and with limited help, should he come early. AND – he came early so good thing I planned accordingly!

Please share your thoughts below — I would love to hear from you!